


Hometown

by PutAnotherX



Category: Golden Boy (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Can be read as a bunch of OCs, Gen, Gratuitous Use Of the Word “Fuck”, I know I’m the only one that watched and remembers Golden Boy, Injury, Memory Loss, Minor Character Death, Non-Consensual Drug Use, On the Run, Presumed Major Character Death, Unnecessarily Graphic Metaphors
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2018-04-17
Packaged: 2019-02-14 06:15:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13001607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PutAnotherX/pseuds/PutAnotherX
Summary: Peter Parker has been missing for three weeks. His face is on posters and the news. He just happens to be found by the one guy who hasn’t been part of the world for just as long.Walter Clark may be a decorated homicide detective in Manhattan now, but he still remembers what it’s like being a kid from Queens. He’s buried his past—or so he thought—but he still knows enough about the borough he grew up in to know who Spider-Man is.He also knows he’s in deep shit if anyone finds out about the fucking twelve-year-old bleeding on his couch, wearing the clothes from his go bag.





	1. No Hospitals

**Author's Note:**

> (Almost) all the non-MCU characters are from a short-lived 2013 police procedural tv show called Golden Boy starring Theo James (yes, THAT Theo James) and Chi McBride. If you have not seen that show, you can read them as OCs. All major plot points important to this story will be explained in some fashion.
> 
> That being said, if you would like to see this show, hit me up. I have it.
> 
> The playlist I created and listened to while writing this can be found here: [to dust](https://open.spotify.com/user/mzqfvba9xm0e1vd44a3jeoqyr/playlist/340WvHNzTeOG7WBuM0EXd4?si=i3-SmMGjT_acA0r07Sh8Fg)

The last thing Peter remembers, he was walking home from school on a cold November afternoon. Then he’s flat on his back in a dirty alleyway, bleeding and staring up at the stars. Logically, he knows there has to have been something between these two, but when he tries to bring it up, his brain melts into his skull and drips molten goo down his spine. Breathing feels like he’s stabbing himself with a dull, rusty blade.

“Hey,” a tentative voice calls. “Is someone there? I’ve got pepper spray.”

Peter tries to answer, but instead he just groans. He hears footsteps, and a pretty girl with dark, smudgy makeup blocks out the stars. She smells like a bic pen and burnt sugar.

“You smell like crack,” Peter squeaks.

“Yeah, well, you look like you’ve been beat to shit,” the girl says. “Can you sit up?”

It feels impossible, but he does it. The girl’s hands wrap around his chest and pull, and his feet find their way under him. When his hand hits the grizzled brick of the wall, it sticks on its own in a way that hasn’t happened since the month after the spider bite. It takes him a few seconds to remember how to release the grip. The girl’s face changes when she notices, but she doesn’t mention it.

“Come on,” she says, “I have somewhere you can go.”

“No hospitals,” Peter pants.

She rolls her eyes, and the motion makes him nauseous again. “Of course not. Let’s go.”

* * *

Walter Clark may be a decorated homicide detective in Manhattan now, but he still remembers what it’s like being a kid from Queens. He also knows that he could get in deep shit if anyone beside Owen or McKenzie found out about the fucking twelve-year-old bleeding on his couch wearing the clothes from his go bag. He doesn’t think he’ll tell either of them.

They don’t say anything for a while. Agnes watches him work, his hands steadier than they’ve been in a while as they drag the warm, wet cloth against the kid’s face. The kid lets out a pathetic whine high in his throat when it passes a cut. His eye is swollen shut, red and purple and painful-looking. Walter’s clothes are too big on “Ben”—who apparently thinks he can’t recognize a fake name when he hears one—even with the cuffs on the jeans rolled up a couple times.

It’s all a rich tapestry. The gray NYPD t-shirt cuffed at the sleeves, the waistband of Walter’s faded jeans loose around this kid’s hips, the clinical white scrubs Agnes found him in splattered with dirt and his own blood and folded neatly in a Ziplock bag on the counter. Walter shoves it all into the compartments in the back of his mind. He’s sure some department-issue shrink will dig it out later, with a notepad and a pen and a patronizing comment about his father like he doesn’t know that whole situation is fucked.

“Look, kid,” Walter says after a long, put-upon sigh. “Give me one good reason I shouldn’t take you in to the station right now.” _Or the fucking hospital,_ his brain helpfully adds.

The kid sputters. He looks up at Walter with one brown eye that is impossibly pleading, impossibly sad. “That would be a lot of paperwork, right?”

He’s trying for funny, and Walter huffs a laugh despite himself. “What the fuck did you get yourself into?”

The kid whines again, bringing his fingers up to press on the swelling by his eye. Walter swats his hand away.

“Don’t touch it, dumbass,” he orders.

Walter is torn. On one hand, he’s a cop—a good one, based on his clearance rate—and bringing in this kid is definitely his job. On the other hand, he’s on leave for another week trying to figure out how to be Walter Clark again. If he steps foot in the station, even with an injured child in tow, Owen and McKenzie will be on his ass faster than he can blink.

On an entirely different hand attached to a different body on a different fucking continent, Agnes had said the kid was like them. _Gifted_ , she likes to call it. _Freaky_ is the word most people would use. He trusts her, she has a sort of sense about these things, but that doesn’t mean he wants to get involved in whatever world-ending Avengers bullshit this kid’s gonna have rain down on him. 

“You can stay here if you want,” Walter says against his better judgement, “but you gotta tell me everything.”


	2. Impasse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interrogation. An invitation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading

Agnes rattles around in the kitchen while Walter pulls a dining room chair opposite Ben to begin the interrogation. She’s strung out and spacey, and he doesn’t want to think about it. One mess at a time. She puts a sandwich down in front of the kid and stands behind Walter.

“What were you doing in an alley?” Walter asks.

“Ben” scowls at his sandwich for a second. “I don’t know,” he says slowly.

Walter takes a deep breath. “Did you take any illicit substances?”

“Drugs, you mean?” Ben asks, and he shakes his head. He takes a huge bite of the sandwich. 

“Or alcohol. At your age.”

“No.” Ben lets Walter study his face for a long moment while he takes another huge bite.

“Agnes,” Walter says. “Can you get him another sandwich? Maybe two?” She doesn’t say anything, but she goes. “Will you tell me your real name?”

Ben chews slowly, his red-rimmed eye—the other is already going down, but it’s still swollen beyond use for now— sizing Walter up. “Ben is my real name,” he says. A split on his bottom lip reopens, and he winces. He looks confused by the dot of blood on his finger when he touches it.

“How enhanced are you, and how did you get enhanced?” Walter asks, pretending the kid didn’t just lie straight to his face. Ben nearly chokes on his sandwich. 

“I’m not enhanced,” he lies.

They’re at an impasse. Ben isn’t stupid enough to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Walter isn’t stupid enough to believe the lies. So, yes, they’re at an impasse, but Ben told enough of the truth that Walter can live with it.

He shovels down both of the new sandwiches Agnes makes him so fast Walter feels like it has to be some kind of record. The kid’s eyes are drooping, glazing over even as he eats.

“Agnes, he’s taking your bed,” Walter says. It’s not a question. “You can have the couch. We’ll pick this up tomorrow after lunch.”

“After lunch?” Ben protests.

Walter sighs. “Yeah. After lunch. I’m not letting you go until I know for sure you’re okay. I’ll make breakfast tomorrow, we’ll talk, I’ll buy you lunch, and then we can take you home. I’m sure your family is worried sick.”

Guilt flashes across Ben’s face at the mention of family, and Walter can feel himself soften.

“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get some sleep.”

* * *

When Peter wakes up, he can see out of his right eye again, but his face is still mottled purple and red, now with some disgusting green and yellow thrown in. The cut on his lip is closed like it had never been there. His stomach growls.

Peter knows he’s essentially a vacuum for food. He eats ten pancakes that morning, as fast as Walter can turn them out. Agnes is still asleep on the couch, sleeping off whatever she did the night before. He feels a little guilty for kicking her out of her own bed, but technically Walter was the one who ordered that arrangement. She hadn’t fought it at all either.

They’re siblings, he thinks, because they have a similar coloring and he can see a commonality in the way their mouths scrunch up when they frown. Walter frowns at him a lot. Agnes’s smiles look painful.

Agnes doesn’t wake up on her own. Instead, Walter wakes her up and tells her to get ready for work. He says it like May does when Peter sleeps through his alarm, except with about a thousand percent more frustration.

“Don’t _you_ have to work?” Peter asks him after she leaves. He seems taken aback, and hurt flashes across his face.

“Not today,” Walter answers after a pause that’s a couple seconds too long. He sits on the couch next to Peter. “I do have plans for lunch, though. If you come with me I’ll get you a burger. Or three.”

Peter hesitates. “I wanna go home,” he admits. He knows he sounds like a little kid, but he can’t convince himself to care.

“To Queens.”

“How did you—“

“You mentioned it to Agnes last night,” Walter explains. “How about this: you come with me, just so I can make sure you’re still alright, we have lunch with my partner, and then I’ll take you home.”

Peter thinks about it. “Okay,” he says. “As long as there are burgers.”

Walter smiles at him for what is probably the first time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realize it’s weird to hang on to something like this for so long, but this show launched a million obsessions for me.


	3. Amber

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [Don Owen](https://i.imgur.com/PyxBZfN.jpg) is disgusted. [Deb Mackenzie](https://i.imgur.com/Z47nZvf.jpg) is astute. [Walter Clark](https://imgur.com/LUb30hy) has been seriously disconnected from the world. Peter Parker is recognized.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don Owen=Walter Clark’s partner.  
> Deb Mackenzie=their compassionate homicide detective colleague.

It’s incredible, watching the kid eat. With the last two meals, Walter thought he had just skipped eating for a while and had to catch up, but now Ben’s in the middle of his second gut buster burger and his third round of bottomless steak fries and still eating like a starving man. Don Owen looks a bit put off by it, sipping coffee to hide the face he’s pulling. Walter himself has been on the receiving end of that move too many times to count.

“So this is your...” Don trails off.

“He’s my cousin’s cousin’s aunt-in-law’s step-grandson,” Clark supplies.

Don raises his eyebrows. “So no relation then?”

Walter rolls his eyes.

“Have you not been feeding him?” Don asks.

“I’m right here,” Ben protests, his mouth full of burger.

“Ben, right?”

The kid blinks. “Yeah,” he says unconvincingly.

“Has he not been feeding you? Where are your parents?”

“Walter’s fed me,” he replies, taking another bite. “And my parents have been dead since I was five.” His voice is steady and level.

Walter tries not to choke on his coffee, and Don blinks back the shock.

“Shouldn’t you know better than to ask about people’s parents by now, Don?” Walter says. 

Don shrugs and sips his coffee again. “I guess so,” he says steadily. “Kinda seemed like news to you, too, though.”

Walter doesn’t have a good answer to that, but he’s saved by a hand on his shoulder.

“You shaved,” Deb Mackenzie says, slipping into the booth beside Don, “and showered. Good for you.” She raises an eyebrow at the kid beside him, but she doesn’t comment. “How are you?” she asks slowly. The concern is written plain as day across her face. Her hand twitches as if it wants to hold his to comfort him.

Walter fights hard not to roll his eyes. “I’m okay,” he says, “all considered.” He gestures vaguely to Ben and starts, “This is—“

“Peter Parker,” Deb interrupts him. A light of recognition flickers on in her face. “The missing kid. The AMBER Alert from three weeks ago.”

Peter drops the burger he’s been working on.

“I’m missing?” he asks. His voice cracks.

* * *

“No,” Peter says, jumping up to a standing position. “No, no, no no nonononono. I can’t be missing. I was just home yesterday!”

“Hey, kid,” Walter says slowly, still blocking Peter’s best way out of the booth, “sit down, let’s talk about this, okay?”

Peter scans the three faces staring at him. Each one is worried, but none are filled with the unbridled, blood-pounding terror that has made its home in his heart. Maybe he should have expected that from a table full of cops, but his brain doesn’t seem to want to catch up to where he is.

“We gotta take him into the station,” the blonde detective says. She stares at Peter the whole time. “Get him home to his aunt.” She turns to Walter and demands, “How did you not recognize him?”

Walter scoffs. “You mean besides not leaving my apartment for exactly three weeks, Deb? _Peter _, sit _down _. You’re safe now and we’re gonna make sure you stay that way.”____

____His name sounds accusatory when Walter says it, but he manages to convince himself to sit._ _ _ _

____“Here’s the plan,” Walter says smoothly, like laying out a trip to the zoo to a twelve-year-old. “We’re gonna finish eating lunch, like we planned, and then instead of taking you straight home, we’ll take you to the station, where your family—your aunt, right?—your family is gonna come pick you up. You’ll have to answer some questions, but they’ll be easy ones. Got it?”_ _ _ _

____Peter nods numbly._ _ _ _

____“Good. We’ll figure this out, kid.”_ _ _ _


	4. Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the station.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Christian Arroyo](https://i.imgur.com/Map3XZf.jpg)\--Snake-y asshole detective

Peter stares at his trembling hands as if they hold the answers to the last three weeks. Walter is in another room being questioned, and the nice blonde detective from the diner has her arm around Peter’s shoulders. One of her hands finds its way around his. She’s reassuring him, comforting him, but he can’t hear it. His ears are ringing. His brain is shutting down.

_Three weeks._

Someone calls his name. His head moves slowly to look, and May is there with tears in her eyes. His legs pull him up. His arms wrap around her. There are tears in his eyes, and all at once he slams back into himself.

“May,” he breathes, and he cries.

* * *

Walter taps his foot and picks imaginary dirt out from under his fingernails.

“Junior,” Don says, “where did you find him?”

“In an alley,” Walter answers. “In Hell’s Kitchen.”

“Why didn’t you bring him in?” Arroyo demands.

Walter shrugs, his eyes never leaving his hands. “He asked me not to. Didn’t want to spook him.”

Arroyo huffs his disbelief. “So, you _found_ a kid—passed out and injured—in an alley, and your first instinct was to take him to your apartment?”

“First of all, _I_ didn’t find him,” Walter snaps back, more of an admission than he cares for. “My sister did. But yes, she took him to my apartment, where I patched him up and fed him. He told me his name was Ben.”

“And you believed him?” Don speaks up again.

“Hell no. But I did believe that he was a scared kid, and I wasn’t about to push him. At the time, making sure he was safe was more important than knowing his real name.”

“And what was your plan after that?” Arroyo asks. He’s leaning forward, looking at Walter like he’s going to devour him.

“Let him sleep it off under supervision; take him home if nothing changed.”

“So, what happened to that?” Walter doesn’t miss the accusation in Arroyo’s tone.

Walter scoffs. “Clearly something changed.”

* * *

May rocks Peter back and forth in her arms just like when he had nightmares as a kid—just like when his parents died, just like when Ben died—her hand smoothing down his curls. Her nose rests on his forehead, and he can feel her hot tears cooling on his face. He sinks into her. He feels his own tears running down his chin. Of all the times May has worried about him, all the times he’s broken her heart by doing something reckless and dangerous, this feels the worst. She’s been alone for _three weeks_ , and even though Peter doesn’t remember anything before waking up in that alley last night, he knows it’s his fault.

They’ve moved into a poorly-lit room with a conference table and bookshelves filled with papers, files, DVDs, VHS tapes, and a strange assortment of books. Detective Mackenzie is setting up an ancient tv with a round screen that sticks out a couple feet in the back. She puts what looks like a homemade DVD in the player.

“This might be hard to watch,” she warns as the television set buzzes to life, “but it’ll hopefully start to jog your memory. Mrs. Parker, you’ve probably already seen this.”

May faces the screen with him, but she never lets him go all the way. He’s grateful. A fuzzy, black and white security camera feed pulls up him walking on a sidewalk. It’s actually the last thing he remembers before Agnes’s voice in the alley. He doesn’t remember the hands that grab him and pull him between two buildings. He doesn’t remember the needle in his neck or the way his body falls limp on the screen or the masks the three men wear or their bodies being at least twice his size each.

“That’s what happened?” he asks, and his voice doesn’t come out all the way.

“Yeah,” Detective Mackenzie says. Her voice is almost as soft as his. “We lose all visual of you as soon as they get you in the van, but this tape was more than enough to warrant an AMBER Alert.”

Peter looks back to May, whose eyes are full of tears again.

"I don't remember any of that," he says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos water my crops and comments clear my skin.


	5. Burner

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Walter day drinks. Peter makes a call he doesn’t remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was getting long, so I cut it off. Who’d’ve Thought I was capable of writing over a thousand words on one chapter?

Walter catches up with Peter and his aunt before they leave the station. He has his burner number scrawled in pencil on the back of his business card. It’s stupid, he thinks. Pointless, probably—hopefully—to give Peter his number just in case. He’s out of danger. He’s back with his aunt—his family. There’s no reason for Peter to need Walter again. But his gut is pulling him into it, so he lets it happen. He puts his hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“Hey,” he says. Peter’s eyes are red-rimmed and on the edge of bloodshot when he looks at him. Walter holds out the card. “If you’re ever in trouble again, anything I can help with, just call, okay?”

Peter sniffs pitifully and takes the card, rubbing under his eye with his other hand. His aunt studies Walter’s face. 

“You’re the one who found him, aren’t you?” she asks.

“More or less,” he says. Before he can breathe again, Mrs. Parker’s arms are squeezing tight around him. He forces himself not to tense up. He pats her back awkwardly. When she pulls away, the tears on her face are fresh.

“Thank you,” she says. Walter smiles at her. “There’s nothing I could ever do to repay you.”

“Just stay safe,” he responds. “Both of you.”

The way they cling to each other as they leave sparks a dull ache in his chest.

* * *

There are two people in the world who have the number to Walter’s burner. It’s an exclusive list for which even Agnes, his beloved sister, inarguably the most important person in his life, hasn’t made the cut. The ringtone is jarring, some bubblegum former Disney star’s shrill, loud, and narcissistic attempt at adult contemporary music waking him from a mid-day depression nap two days after he watched Peter and May walk out of the precinct together. He nearly jumps out of his skin. His hands fumble—he might be a bit tipsy, but he hadn’t planned on leaving the apartment—as he pulls open the drawer of his coffee table and fishes around for the little red flip phone. He doesn’t bother checking the screen. There aren’t any numbers saved. He answers.

“Walter?” Peter’s voice asks from the other end. He sounds raspy and waterlogged, like he’s been crying. Walter’s heart stops.

“Peter?” Walter says. “What’s wrong? Where are you?”

Peter gasps a shuddering breath. “I’m at home. At my apartment,” he says, and he rattles off the address. “I need help. I’m not sure what’s going on.”

“Give me 25 minutes,” Walter says.

* * *

When he gets to the apartment building—he took the train and a cab, but by now he’s mostly sober—there are squad cars lined up outside and an ambulance waiting. A paramedic leans against the back of it as he checks his phone. Walter walks right past it all like he belongs there, and no one even tries to stop him. He takes the stairs two at a time.

The seventh floor is swarming with emergency personnel, but no one is moving like it’s an emergency. He gets past four uniform officers unnoticed and stops in his tracks. There, in front of the wide-open door that, by process of elimination, had to be Peter’s stood Arroyo, waiting to catch him. If he’s here, the rest of the squad must be, too, and Walter really didn’t expect that. Their precinct is in _Manhattan_ , so whatever shitty budget issue or weird bureaucratic mess brought them to _Queens_ , he has no clue. Arroyo chooses that moment to look up at him.

“What the fuck are _you_ doing here?” Arroyo snaps.

“Taking a walk,” Walter snarks back. “Just thought I’d stop by and ask how your wife’s doing.”

Arroyo’s mouth crumpled into a scowl. “Well I’ll tell you she’s certainly doing better than your girlfriend.”

Walter stops himself from flinching, and before he can open his mouth to say something else he’ll regret later, Mackenzie walks up to them.

“You know you don’t come back till Monday, right?” she asks him. He can feel the confrontation that seeped into his stance melt away. Arroyo rolls his eyes and walks away.

“I’m here for—“ he starts, but he reconsiders his words. “I got a call.”

“You got a call,” Mackenzie repeats. She raises an eyebrow at him and makes a face. “Have you been drinking?”

“No,” he says too quickly and too loudly. He lowers his voice. “A little, but it was a while ago. And it’s not why I’m here.”

“Then why _are_ you here?” she asks.

“Peter Parker called me. Asked me to come. I didn’t know it’d be this big of a scene.”

Her eyes widen immediately. “Follow me, then,” she says softly. “Don’t touch anything, obviously, and try not to react.”

As soon as he steps in the door, Walter knows exactly what she meant by it. There’s blood everywhere, splattered and dripped and smeared and piled on every available surface, radiating from the center of the kitchen. Peter’s in the corner of the living room, curled with his arms around his knees and his face hidden by his legs.

Don looks like he’s going to repeat the conversation Walter and Mackenzie had in the hallway when he notices him, but she holds up a hand to stop him. It’s clear from the look on his face that he won’t drop the issue, though. Detective Diaco just hands Walter a pair of gloves without a word. Walter puts them on and kneels in front of Peter.

* * *

Peter can’t really remember, but he’s pretty sure he’s having one of the Top Ten Worst Days of his entire life. A thick, dark fog rolls through his brain, obscuring all memory and making each thought and decision infinitely more difficult. The wall isn’t cool against his back, so he must have been here a while. Maybe. Or it’s a hot day. Maybe it’s summer. He can’t remember. Even just lifting his head is a hard choice to make when he hears a voice speaking softly in front of him. Eventually he fights against every fiber in his body that wants to stay put, that’s cementing him into his fetal position in the corner.

The voice is attached to a man that Peter thinks he should know. Tan skin and brown eyes and brown hair and just a ridiculously handsome face. He can see the man’s mouth move. He can hear words coming out, too, but he can’t quite figure out what he’s saying. He tries to focus.

“Peter?” Walter—it’s Walter, and how is _he_ here?—says. He smells a little like whiskey. “Peter, are you hurt?”

He thinks hard before answering. “I don’t think so,” he says slowly. A smile, comforting smile works its way onto Walter’s face.

“Good,” Walter says. “That’s good. Can you tell me what happened?”

Peter’s chest aches. He feels scooped out of his body, tethered to it by fraying ribbons instead of living in it. “I don’t know,” he whispers. He buries his face back in his knees. “I don’t know.”


End file.
